Notes of a Publicist (September 13, 1913)

Published:Pravda TrudaNo. 3, September 13, 1913.

      Signed:N—k.

      Published according to thePravda Trudatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages382-387.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

I. NON-PARTY INTELLECTUALS AGAINST MARXISM

Theeditors ofNovaya Rabochaya Gazetahave come out in
defence of the non-Party agitation to divide collections equally between
the liquidators, the Narodniks and the Marxists.

Whenit was pointed out to them that such a division is an absolutely
unprincipled method that undermines the foundations of the Marxist attitude
to petty-bourgeois
			       trends,[1]the editors did not know what to say in reply and tried to pass it off with
a joke. We, they said, don’t know anything about a “Marxist system of
collections”.

Therenegades want to “make amiable jokes” about our old decisions.

Theworkers, however, will allow no joking on such a question.

Thatsame twenty-third issue ofNovaya Rabochaya Gazetainforms us that the liquidators’ agitation has attracted two working-class
groups in Russia—a group of printing workers in the town of Dvinsk and a
group at the Nemirov-Kolodkin factory in Moscow. These groups contributed
their collectionsequallyto the liquidators’, Narodniks’ and
Marxist newspapers.

Letthe renegade intellectuals laugh off the question; the workers,
however, must and will decide it.

Topreach the equal division of collections means preaching
non-partisanship and confusing (or equating) news papers that hold the
proletarian class point of view withthose of the petty bourgeoisie, the Narodnik newspapers. The “amiable
jokers”, those who write for the liquidators’ newspaper, cannot raise any
objection to this elementary truth, although their jokes and sniggers
probably arouse the admiration of the bourgeois public. A person who has
suffered a complete fiasco among the workers often recompenses himself with
the admiration expressed by the bourgeoisie when he ridicules the very idea
of a consistently Marxist solution to questions of current practice.

Theliquidators have taken comfort—at a meeting of metalworkers they
suffered a complete defeat. At any meeting of the bourgeois gentry the
liquidators are awarded an amiable smile for amiable jokes directed against
the position held by a workers’ newspaper.

Leteveryone have what he wants. Let the liquidators console themselves
with their successes among the bourgeoisie. The workers, however, will
explain to the masses the indubitable truth that to preach the equal
division of workers’ collections is preaching non-partisanship, is
preaching the confusion or the equation of the proletariat’s Marxist
newspaper with an intellectual and petty-bourgeois newspaper, like that of
the Narodniks.

II. LIBERAL BLINDNESS

Theusual method adopted by West-European opportunists, from the time
of Eduard Bernstein, whose views were vigorously rejected by German
Social-Democracy, is the following:

“Takea look at things as they are,” said Bernstein and the other
opportunists, “have the courage to say outright what is—in Germany we
are all engaged in a struggle for reforms, we are all reformists in
essence, we are a party of reforms. And the abolition of wage-slavery in a
series of crises is all words, an empty utopia.”

Sincethen the opportunists have repeated this trick of theirs a
hundred times and the entire bourgeois press (our CadetRechabove
all) is constantly making use of this argument of the opportunistsagainstMarxism. Anyone seriously interested in the fate of the
working-class movementshould have a proper knowledge of this worn-out manoeuvre of the downright
enemies and false friends of the proletariat.

InSt. Petersburg quite recently (September 4) the not unknown
liquidator D. repeated in the liquidators’ newspaper the all-Europe
bourgeois manoeuvre with a crudeness or arrogance that is worthy of
attention.

Letthe reader judge for himself.

“Weopen, any workers’ newspaper, say evenSevernaya Pravda,” wrote D., “and what do we see? We read of
   the activities of workers’ organisations, trade unions, clubs and
   co-operatives; of the meetings of the members of those organisations and
   of their leading committees, of insurance agents, etc.; of lectures and
   reports organised by workers; of strikes, and strike committees; of the
   organisation of various collections; of attempts at political action on
   the part of groups of workers in defence of the workers’ press, to
   honour the memory of Bebel or for some other immediate purpose.”

“Weopen, any workers’ newspaper, say evenSevernaya Pravda,” wrote D., “and what do we see? We read of
   the activities of workers’ organisations, trade unions, clubs and
   co-operatives; of the meetings of the members of those organisations and
   of their leading committees, of insurance agents, etc.; of lectures and
   reports organised by workers; of strikes, and strike committees; of the
   organisation of various collections; of attempts at political action on
   the part of groups of workers in defence of the workers’ press, to
   honour the memory of Bebel or for some other immediate purpose.”

Thatis what D. and others like him have “seen” and still “see” inSevernaya Pravda. And just like Bernstein, of course, he exclaims:
“It will do no harm to look first atwhat is” (D.’s
italics). Whereupon he comes to the conclusion that all this is the
struggle for freedom of association. “The slogan of struggle for freedom
of association as the most important current demand”, “epitomiseswhat is” (D.’s italics).

Bernsteinmaintained that he was “generalising what is” when he
asserted that the working-class struggle was a struggle for reforms.

D.maintains that he is “generalising what is” when he asserts that
the working-class movement in Russia is reformist.

Bernsteintried to give aliberalcontent to the workers’
struggle for reforms, a struggle filled with a far from reformist
content. D. is acting in literally the same fashion. He seesnothingbut liberal reformism and tries to pass off his blindness
as reality.

SevernayaPravda, of course, did fight for even the slightest
improvement in the workers’ life and in the conditions of the workers’
struggle, but did not do it in the liberal way, as gentlemen like D. do!
Therewasa lot inSevernaya Pravdathat they
missed—there was the struggle against reformism, there was defence of the
“old”, defence of full-blooded slogans,etc. Gentlemen like D. are of the opinion that such things are not)
important. They “fail to see” them, they do not want to see
them, just because they are liberals. Like all liberals, they cannot
understand theconnection, the close, inseverable connection the
Marxists make between defence of the slightest improvement and defence of
the slogans of their organisation, etc. It is not clear to them that this
connection determines the radical difference between the world outlook of
the liberal (he is also in favour of freedom of association) and that of
the working-class democrat.

Divorcethe struggle for reforms from the struggle for the final
goal—that is what Bernstein’s preaching actually amounts to. Divorce the
struggle for improvements, for freedom of association, etc., from the
struggle against reformism, from the defence of Marxism, from its spirit
and its political trend—that is what the preaching of D. and the other
liquidators actually amounts to.

Theywant to impose their liberal blindness (not seeing the connection
with the past, not seeing its trend, not seeing the struggle against
reformism) on the working class. As the meeting of metalworkers on
August 25 showed again and again, advanced workers have already seen
through the liberal nature of D. and his petty group.

III. A NECESSARY EXPLANATION

Inissue No. 24 ofNovaya Rabochaya Gazetawe came across an
amusing sally against our description of the Dublin
			       events.[2]It would probably not have been worth while responding to an amusing item
had the liquidators’ newspaper not gone so far as to offer an explanation
that is extremely important and instructive for the workers. Judge for
yourselves. We made a distinction between Britain, where the workers’
demand for thereformof trade union legislation (laws on freedom
of association) is of very serious and real importance because the general
basis of political liberty exists in that country, and Russia, where such a
demandis not serious, is an empty liberal phrase, but where such reforms as
insurance are seriously practicable under the existing political system.

Theliquidators do not understand the difference. Let us try to explain
it by asking two questions:
1. Why is a bourgeois-democratic revolution, a revolution for political
liberties, impossible in England?
2. Why was it that in Russia, towards the end of the last century, in 1897,
for example, partialreformsof the factory laws were quite
possible, and nobody disputed the partial demands of the workers in this
sphere, whereas all Marxists in those days considered that the demand for
partial political reforms was a liberal deception?

Whenthe liquidators have given these questions some thought they may
be able to guess the reasons for taking a different attitude to various
reforms in Russia and in Britain.

Andnow for the important explanation given in the liquidators’
newspaper.

“But,”it says(No. 24, page 2,
   column 1) “if this basis[i.e., the general basis of
   political liberties]is not necessary for partial changes in
   insurance legislation, why is it necessary for a partial change in the law
   of March 4, 1906 and certain articles of the decree on strikes of
   December 2, 1906?”

“But,”it says(No. 24, page 2,
   column 1) “if this basis[i.e., the general basis of
   political liberties]is not necessary for partial changes in
   insurance legislation, why is it necessary for a partial change in the law
   of March 4, 1906 and certain articles of the decree on strikes of
   December 2, 1906?”

Wecongratulate you on your frankness and thank you for it! You have
hit the mark—“a partial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and
December 2,
1905”[3]is quite possiblewithoutanything general! Superb.

Only—doyou know what?—that “partial change in the laws of
March 4, 1906 and December 2, 1905” is not called “freedom of
association” but Octobrist deception of the people.

TheNovaya Rabochaya Gazetawriters have admitted exactly what
was to be proved.

Bythe “freedom of association” that the liberals and liquidators
treat you to, must be understood:

“Apartial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and
   December 2, 1905.”

“Apartial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and
   December 2, 1905.”

Onceagain we thank you for your frankness. And so we shall put it on
record that the main, central, chief, primary, etc., etc., slogan of the
liquidators is, by their own admission,the demand for apartial change in the laws of March 4, 1906 and
December 2, 1906.

NovayaRabochaya Gazetahas brilliantly refuted its
association with the liberals, has it not?

Itis not for nothing that the liquidators have been called
Social-Democratic Octobrists!

[1]Seepp. 343–47 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]Seepp. 348–49 of this volume.—Ed.

[3]TheLaw of March 4 (17), 1906—temporary rules for
associations, unions and meetings—permitted their organisation but placed
somany obstacles in their way that the law was practically reduced to
nought. The law granted the Minister of the interior the right to suppress
associations and unions at his own discretion and also to refuse the
registration of new unions.

TheLaw of December 2 (15), 1905was the name given to the
temporary regulations under which strikers were subject to conviction as
criminals.